NEW YORK BOSTON |#Popular: Irish Celebrity Gossip Irish in US Politics Irish Festivals Irish Roots Irish Entertainment Offbeat Irish

Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Donald Trump is now the meanest billionaire in creation - that’s official -- Contrast with the most generous, Irish American Chuck Feeney, never greater

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Donald Trump is now the meanest billionaire in creation - that’s official -- Contrast with the most generous, Irish American Chuck Feeney, never greater

Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2012 at 07:18 AM

Larger Text

E-mail

36 Comments

See more: Titanic

RSS

Archives

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is the meanest billionaire in creation and it is now official says New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff in his recent column.

Kristoff names CNN founder Ted Turner as the most generous because of his $1 billion gift to the United Nations 15 years ago but he’s wrong there.

All available evidence is that it is Irish American Chuck Feeney who began the ‘Giving While Living’ trend now embraced by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet among others.

Kristoff says Turner was the inspiration for giving while living but it was Feeney, a man I have known well for over 25 years now because of his involvement in Ireland, who led the way.

As Forbes magazine recently noted “Chuck Feeney is the James Bond of philanthropy. Over the last 30 years he’s crisscrossed the globe conducting a clandestine operation to give away a $7.5 billion fortune ....His foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, has funneled $6.2 billion into education, science, health care, aging and civil rights in the U.S., Australia, Vietnam, Bermuda, South Africa and Ireland.

"Few living people have given away more, and no one at his wealth level has ever given their fortune away so completely during their lifetime. The remaining $1.3 billion will be spent by 2016, and the foundation will be shuttered in 2020. While the business world’s titans obsess over piling up as many riches as possible, Feeney is working double time to die broke.”

Meanwhile an investigation by The Smoking Gun website revealed Donald Trump as the meanest of all the billionaires.

He says he is worth $7 billion and he has given away all of $3.7 million in that time the Smoking Gun folks found.

“From 1990 through 2009, Trump has personally donated a total of just $3.7 million to his foundation, which was incorporated in 1987. In fact, the billionaire is not even the largest contributor to his own charitable organization.”

He has given away less about $200,000 a year during that time.

Putting it in context Michael Bloomberg gave away $235 million last year alone. Chuck Feeney is giving that much away before breakfast -- every day, every year.

I remember asking Feeney about Trump and receiving a highly uncomplimentary answer. Seems he had reached out to him once on a non-profit housing venture in one off New York’s toughest neighborhoods but the Donald was not interested,

Of course not.

Jim Dwyer of The New York Times wrote memorably that "Chuck Feeney was what Donald Trump would be if he led his life backward."

As we face a new year the two men represent different visions of the American dream.

One is a chest thumping, look at me Scrooge, the other, embodies the incredibly generous philanthropic soul of this country that is the envy of every other democracy.

I have no doubt whose side we should all come down on.

See more: Titanic

E-mail

36 comments

Next Previous Page 2 of 3 pages

Proud Canadian2 | Dec 30, 2012, 04:11 PM EST

Trump isn't only the meanest but the stupidest billionare, if he really is a billionare. His tyrades against Obama were moronic.

Report abuse

McNamara31 | Dec 30, 2012, 04:11 PM EST

I guess Mr. Trump never learned: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected" Trump remains a self indulgent ego maniac who thinks nothing of slandering those in his wake only to gain attention for his imbecilic reality shows. And to think all the GOP primary contenders made trips to New York to hover at his feet tells you the true essence of GOP values today.

Report abuse

handsome68 | Dec 30, 2012, 03:49 PM EST

A comment re: Respectfully's comment. You made one mistake, small to some, big to others: Turner apparently gave one billion, not one million, as you wrote. I agree with all the rest that you wrote.

Report abuse

jacersagain | Dec 30, 2012, 03:04 PM EST

It doesn’t surprise me that Trump has been labelled the meanest. After all, doesn’t his mother come from the Scottish Presbyterian stock of the Western Isles? The money-eyed Scottish Govt recently over-rode objections by local people in Aberdeenshire to Trump’s plans to build a golf course on a Site of Special Scientific Interest because it would bring “wealth” and that the special scientific interest could be let go. The Scottish people’s reputation for financial frugality and meanness was the reason that the old British “three penny” bit and the present 50 pence coins were made with hexagonal shapes - so that you could take them from a Scotsman’s hand with a wrench tool. You'd have to wait for billion-dollar hexagonal coins before you'd get anything from The Donald.

Report abuse

The Commentator | Dec 30, 2012, 02:38 PM EST

Trump the Chump is not only cheap, he is so vain he he refused to cut his hair when Mark Cuban offered to donate one million dollars to a charity of Trumps' choice if he did. What a poor excuse for a human being !!!

Report abuse

slainte9 | Dec 30, 2012, 01:20 PM EST

Is Trump a billionaire. How do you flirt and go into bankruptcy more than once and get to call yourself a billionaire. He's just full-of-hot-aire.

Report abuse

seamus60 | Dec 30, 2012, 01:08 PM EST

"You have been Trumped " is a good watch. How he shafts the ordinary scots with the help of unscrupulous Irish.

Report abuse

donal1951 | Dec 30, 2012, 12:49 PM EST

Another generous Irishman was the late Thomas Flatley, who emigrated from County Mayo to Boston and made millions in real estate. He also was a very decent and unassuming man I had the pleasure to meet several times.

Report abuse

JimmieM | Dec 30, 2012, 12:21 PM EST

I think the Donald is...give a man a job and let him earn a fish...rather than here you little pissant I will give you a fish because I am So Great and wonderful kind of guy, your call I guess which is "kind"

Report abuse

JimmieM | Dec 30, 2012, 12:10 PM EST

Trump has been bankrupt and is reputedly worth on a good day in the very low hundreds of millions.He's all blow.

Report abuse

Respectfully | Dec 30, 2012, 12:00 PM EST

What percentage of your income, Niall O’Dowd, have you donated for any reason? And by the way, nice to know Ted Turner wasted a $1-million donation to the useless/corrupt United Nations! No doubt the only ones the money benefited was the UN Ambassadors themselves.

Report abuse

MichaelMcGrath | Dec 30, 2012, 11:50 AM EST

I would be concerned about reports that Chuck Feeney is financing abortion for Ireland, that he has also been financing the mass immigration into Ireland lobby to the detriment of the Irish native worker and the expense of the Irish Health, Education and Welfare services, and that his money found its way to Noraid and thus IRA-Sinn Fein. If so this is usurping Irish democracy with money.

Report abuse

bob mcbride | Dec 30, 2012, 11:10 AM EST

Donald Trump may not be as rich as you think? He has a good line of credit with wall street bankers, who have already ripped off american taxpayers. Please print the facts he is a puppett for JP Morgan,citi group,meriil Lynch,stearns, etc. Its too bad JP wasn't on the titanic!

Report abuse

LasVegasRocks | Dec 30, 2012, 10:40 AM EST

like2tweet "the donald shud play scrooge next year" No need to "play" when one is.

Report abuse

brinniewales | Dec 30, 2012, 10:34 AM EST

Almost goes without saying, Mr. Trump isn't even Irish...

Report abuse

Next Previous Page 2 of 3 pages